Fall Away
by Kat Shrodinger
Summary: Julianna Grey was in the city when it happened. All that Loki v. Avengers stuff. She saw the whole thing. But who else did? Not a lot believe their own eyes. Just when Jules thought she was getting over it, like the rest of the world... "Nope. Not a possibility," says the universe.
1. Chapter 1

**Julianna**

"Come on, Jess," I say, prompting my boyfriend as I turn around, walking backwards along the tracks. "Don't be so square! Live a little!"

He frowns, walking next to the tracks and trying to keep up without running. I can move pretty fast, when I want to. "Usually when people say that, someone ends up dying."

I make a face, holding my arms out to the moonlit sky. "Who's gonna get you killed? Me?" I scoff, joking around with him. He doesn't smile, not happy with that humor. After the incident in New York, and my "insane amnesia" afterwards… He's not happy with me talking about dying.

"Jesse. Stop acting like I'm going to flip out every time this comes up."

"Every time what comes up?"

"New York! Loki, Captain America, the Hulk. The Avengers, and how crazy you and my family thought I was," I exclaim. He knows exactly what I'm talking about.

"Jules, you were drugged up because of the pain and-"

"No. That was real. That happened before the drugs, Jesse, I have perfect, clear memories of what happened in the city and you are not going to keep pretending you didn't see it, too."

"I didn't _see_ anything, Jules! So there was a flash of blue light and some messed up crap going on in the streets, but the light was a transformer blowing or something. And all that crap in the streets, that was just a coincidence."

I let out a long, frustrated breath and step off the tracks, into the middle. "Don't do that, Jesse. It's not fair."

"What's not fair?!"

"That you keep telling people I was drugged up and crazy. That you don't believe what you saw. It isn't fair that I have to believe in something unbelievable all alone."

He steps toward me, pity behind his sad expression. "You're not alone, Jules."

"Yes, I am. Nobody believes me," I insist, crossing my arms. He reaches out, sighing.

"Someone does."

"Who?" I ask, getting angry. "Not you. Not my parents. Not my friends. No one."

"_Someone_ does, Jules, I promise," he says, not allowing me a chance to speak as he takes my hands in his. "I will, if you push me hard enough."

I set my jaw, extremely frustrated. He won't, I know it. He never will and that's just… Stupid. He saw it, everything that happened, all that chaos. He witnessed every bit of it.

"Ow," he says, pulling away. "Jules, what'd you do?" Rodger stares down at his hands, and I follow his gaze, my mouth dropping open. His hands are… Gone. Literally flying away. Falling to the ground in tiny, flaking pieces.

"Jess…" I whisper, taking a few steps back in fear. "Oh my God, Jesse, what's wrong with your hands?"

The flaking has moved up to his arms, and is getting faster. "Julia. Jules, c'mon! Help me!" He shouts, looking from his disappearing arms, to me, and back down again. His feet have disappeared as well, and his shins are quickly vanishing.

My eyes fill with tears and I scream a little, stumbling backwards. _What do I do? Oh my God, what the hell do I do?_ His chest starts vanishing, then his neck and head and… He's gone. My boyfriend… I killed my boyfriend. Did I? _Oh my God._

A sound like a fog horn blares behind me and I spin around, suddenly blinded. _A train_. I think immediately. A train. It dawns on me that I'm standing still and the conductor is blaring the horn and I am standing still, in the path of a train.

And then it hits me.

Literally.

The train hits me.

Except it doesn't. It goes right through me. It feels like wind rushing around me, little pieces of dust smacking my face. For ten minutes or so, at least, that's how long it feels, I stand on the tracks in the middle of the storm, waiting. For what? Don't ask, because I don't know.

But when it finally stops, there is ash surrounding me in a small pile and I have no idea what I did. I would say that maybe I am going crazy, there was no train, and Jesse went home without me… Except that the next morning on the news, train 5708 never reached its destination and my boyfriend never came home.

* * *

Tony Stark was getting so tired of calls from Fury. "Stark, where are you?" "Stark, respond. Now." "Stark? Stark. Stark, you have to answer sometime." At least, that's what every single call sounded like to the prestigious Iron Man.

Finally, his doorbell rang. He grumbled, but answered the door to find Fury, Natalia, Clint, Bruce... Everyone. Except Steve. He was probably still trying to figure out how to answer to the phone. "What now? Do you need me _that badly_?"

"No," he stated flatly, pushing inside.

"Did I say you could come inside? I don't think so."

"Stark. Stop. Pay attention." Reluctantly, he shut his mouth. "We found it."

His mouth dropped open and Clint smothered a snicker. "You found the- Why didn't somebody tell Steve?!" Steve was the one who related to the issue most... "Are you sure you found it?"

Fury nodded, and Bruce cut in. "A girl in Jersey disintegrated her boyfriend and a train."

Stark stood still for a moment, staring at them with a little bit of a squint. "How do we _know_ this? Do we spy on _everyone_? Are we legal?"

"Yes," Nat said, rolling her eyes.

"To which?"

"Stark." Tony's head snapped back to Fury, but before he could speak, Fury started talking. "She's coming here today."

"Oh. Oh, OH. What? No! It'll-"

"She."

"-_she'll_ disintegrate my beautiful tower!"

"Calm down, stupid," Nat says incredulously. "There's a thing called gloves."

Reluctantly, and very slowly, they managed to persuade him. The Tesseract was coming to visit.


	2. Chapter 2

**Julianna**

Knocking on the door was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Here I am. Beautiful metal door, Stark Tower, top floor. _Holy crap._ My hand rises to tap it with my knuckles when I see the doorbell. I want to smack myself in the head. I was so freaked out that I couldn't see the doorbell. I ring it once and the door opens into my face almost immediately. Actually, no… The person inside the door is in my face.

"Um… Hi."

He pulls back, calling to someone else inside. "Is this her?"

"Let her in," another voice comes back. He steps aside to do so and I follow him, looking around. Stark Tower… Is prettier on the inside. _Is that all I'm thinking right now? _Something's wrong with me if that's what I'm thinking about.

Five people stand around a kitchen counter facing the enormous windows and I raise one hand in a hesitant greeting. One guy with an eye patch starts toward me and puts a hand on my shoulder that I awkwardly shrug off.

"Everyone," he says, his voice deep and flat. "This is the Tesseract."

My brow creases and I look up at him, turning slightly. "Sorry. What? No. Name's Jules. Not, um… Whatever you said. And I'm a 'she', not a 'the'."

"Not anymore. You are the last remaining piece of this-" Eyepatch holds out a picture and I take it, scanning over it. Someone holds a bright, almost glowing blue cube. That's the focus of the picture, but I look for something else anyway.

"I'm not a blue box, as you can tell. Or maybe you can't, I wouldn't know."

"Your boyfriend and that train would say otherwise."

I shut my mouth, swallowing.

"This is Dr. Bruce Banner, Ms. Natalia Romanov, Mr. Tony Stark, and Mr. Clint Barton-" the door opens as he finishes and someone else – a very tall someone else – walks in. "And that's Captain Steve Rodgers."

"Don't worry, I know who they are," I mutter, matching each with their alias.

"Captain, this is the Tesseract."

I manage to keep my mouth shut this time.

Steve doesn't say anything for a moment, but the extra pair of eyes on me isn't comforting. Finally, for a long, stretched out minute, he says, "What's her name?"

"_Her_ name is Julianna," I say, sighing in frustration. "And she's in the room."

"I want real food," Stark mutters with a roll of his eyes. Hawkeye – or Clint? What do I call them all? – follows, probably agreeing that they're bored and drags Natalia with him. Banner – Hulk? – seems to just disappear, along with Eyepatch, although I see _him_ leave. Fancy black cape sweeping behind him… Weird. What about his name?

I shove my hands in my pockets, feeling nothing but the gloves surrounding my fingers. _My life officially blows_, I think as I sit by the windows.

"Don't break anything," Stark calls as he pulls Clint and Natalia out the door. Clint follows up, "Don't go anywhere you're not supposed to," and Natalia finishes, "or we'll end you!"

Yep. Life officially blows. Good going, Jules.


End file.
